Celerio Auto Gear Shift variants will have the flexibility of both manual mode and auto drive mode in the same car, with a simple shift of gear lever. “Celerio will cater to a growing demand for vehicles with automatic gear shift at an affordable price,” he said.

With the new compact car, MSI has worked on addressing three key issues associated with automatic transmission cars — high cost of acquisition, low fuel economy and maintenance hassles.

According to the company, about 25% of consumers who come to its showrooms enquire about cars with automatic transmission but the conversion rate was very poor once they found those issues related with such vehicles.

Currently, an automatic transmission (AT) version of a car in the market is more expensive by up to Rs 1.1 lakh than its manual transmission version. MSI has already started taking bookings for the car.

In the past, the company has launched AT version of its compact cars, including the Zen and A-Star, but their prohibitive prices made it difficult to crack the market.